


Stand Up Guy

by cookinguptales



Category: The Muppet Show
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Mild Schmaltz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21902821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookinguptales/pseuds/cookinguptales
Summary: Fozzie Bear thinks that perhaps his jokes need to keep up with the times, but Kermit has reservations.
Comments: 45
Kudos: 129
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Stand Up Guy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> Written for your prompt about where Fozzie gets his material! That was answered in a lot of different ways throughout ~Muppets history~ (see: Gags Beasley) but all of these characters have so many disparate backstories that I didn't feel bad creating one more. Hope you have some very happy holidays!

“Kermit — Kermit, could we talk about something?”

Kermit paused mid-step. He really didn’t have time for whatever Fozzie needed right now — the vegetables had declared revolution and the Swedish Chef was starting to pull out the heavy artillery — but something in Fozzie’s face made him put down the salad spinner and pay close attention. “Sure. What is it, Fozzie?”

Fozzie’s shoulders hunched slightly and his eyes dropped away from Kermit’s. “Well, it’s just… Kermit, do you think my jokes need to be more edgy?” he asked.

“Edgy?” Kermit asked. “What do you mean?” Fozzie’s jokes were many, many things, but edgy was not one of them. Which was kind of nice, actually; after this many years working on The Muppet Show, Kermit had had more than his fill of sharp objects.

“Oh, you know,” Fozzie said, flapping one hand ineffectively, “like those late night hosts, you know? Or like those big-time comedians. They’re always telling jokes about politics or celebrities and I’m still doing knock-knock.”

Kermit frowned. “Not just knock-knock. You tell lots of different jokes. Sometimes you’re really creative about that.” Sometimes too creative. Kermit wasn’t likely to forget the rollerskates debacle any time soon.

“Ye-es,” Fozzie hazarded slowly, stretching the word out. “But they’re all the same _kind_ of joke, Kermit.”

And that, that wasn’t untrue. There was a certain nostalgic charm about Fozzie’s standup, like squinting through a haze of red juice when you got a joke on a popsicle stick. Sometimes Kermit could almost taste them sticky-sweet in the back of his throat when Fozzie went on stage.

Kermit scratched at the back of his neck. He’d thrown away an awful lot of popsicle sticks over the years. Maybe that was exactly what Fozzie was worried about. “It’s not a bad kind of joke, though, Fozzie. Or, well… Maybe that’s not true. But it’s, uh, a valid creative choice.”

“Hmm.” The noise Fozzie made was noncommittal. “Sure, but don’t you think I need some new material?”

Kermit tilted his head to one side. “Huh. Is Gags starting to run out of jokes?” he asked. He’d heard Fozzie talking about a joke writer he used sometimes, Gags Beasley. The guy apparently charged by the laugh, so Kermit could only assume that he was still waiting on his first paycheck.

“No, no, he’s still full of them,” Fozzie said. “Or full of something, at least. But Kermit, it’s just—”

Kermit had a feeling that they were finally getting to the crux of the matter. “It’s just what, Fozzie?”

Fozzie shifted from one foot from the other, so fidgety that he was even making Kermit uncomfortable. “It’s just — it’s just that they don’t _laugh_ , Kermit. Not even a giggle, a chuckle, a snicker! Nothing! My jokes aren’t _funny_ ,” he said, and it came out only a hair’s breadth from a wail.

“Uh…” The pain in Fozzie’s voice was real, he was sure, but Kermit wasn’t exactly sure what to say to it. Of course Fozzie’s jokes weren’t funny. That was something that, up until this exact moment, had been obvious to every person in the theater — except, perhaps, Fozzie.

“Kermit, what is a bear of comedy without any laughs? A bear of misery, that’s what! What am I supposed to do if they don’t like my jokes?”

The same thing that he’d been doing for years? Kermit had known Fozzie for a long time now, and the bear was practically indefatigable. How many times had he come off stage dripping tomato pulp only to gratefully take a towel from Kermit’s waiting hands and throw himself right back in the game? Kermit had lost count a long time ago. Fozzie was a terrible comedian, but a courageous one.

This though, this felt different. Kermit was used to Fozzie covering his eyes and moaning after a bad set, but usually by the time he took his hands away from his face, his mouth was back to being set in determination. Now that determination had been replaced with a sort of nervous energy that Kermit didn’t like. Fozzie’s best quality was his stubborn optimism, but it seemed to have finally reached his limit.

“Fozzie, did you read the comments?” Kermit asked. It was a dangerous game, paying attention to the show’s reviews and comment cards. That was why Kermit employed a paper-eating monster full time. Fozzie’s gaze suddenly went evasive, though, and Kermit had to admit to himself that sometimes a few of them slipped through the cracks. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Just a few,” Fozzie admitted. “But Kermit — oh Kermit, they were _terrible._ The audience _hates_ me.”

“The audience hates everything,” Kermit replied automatically. It was a mystery how they always seemed to have a full house every night.

“They liked Miss Piggy’s duet with herself,” Fozzie replied, “and Muppet Labs’ nuclear knife sharpener, even if it did eat Beaker.” He went quiet for a moment, his fingers playing with that silly tie of his. “They just didn’t like me. Said my jokes were outdated even when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and that they were so unfunny that they were probably what killed them.”

“Oh Fozzie, that’s terrible,” Kermit said. “But you can’t—”

“Can’t what, Kermit? Tell a joke? Get a laugh?” Fozzie wiped a hand down his face. “Maybe this bear just needs to learn some new tricks.”

Kermit swallowed. “What exactly did you have in mind, Fozzie?” he asked.

“Well… Well, I did some research,” Fozzie said, and pulled out a few cards. “I watched some new comedy routines and read through Twitter and I got some ideas. I think this is what people like, Kermit.”

Kermit took the cards from Fozzie, but he couldn’t tamp down the frown that started to steal over his face as he read through the ideas scrawled onto them. Swipes at celebrities who’d embarrassed themselves recently. Impressions of particularly foul politicians. “Fozzie, these jokes aren’t funny, either. They’re just — they’re just mean.”

“But it’s what the audience wants, Kermit! You should see how many likes jokes like that get online!”

Kermit flicked the wrist that was holding the cards almost dismissively. “But do _you_ like them?” he asked.

All the air seemed to get caught in Fozzie’s throat as he tried to respond to that, and Kermit noted the way his eyebrows fell. “I—”

Kermit just watched him levelly. “Do you remember that night a long time ago, when we first started up the show? You know, the night when the Swedish Chef brought his uh…”

“The special punch?” Fozzie offered, a little wanly.

It hadn’t been expressly alcoholic, Kermit had been told later on, but it had been in the fridge an awfully long time. The cast had gotten a little, well, silly. And Kermit remembered lying on his back in the middle of a huge stage that none of them really knew what to do with, not yet, and he remembered staring up into the half-lit stage lights like they were stars in the sky.

He remembered Fozzie lying there next to him, breaths unsteady around tiny little hiccups, and he remembered them talking, really talking, for the first time.

Fozzie had told him dreamily about getting a joke book for Christmas when he was just a cub. How he’d put on little shows for his family, who would clap politely and even very occasionally give him a real chuckle. How it had lit something up in him, putting a smile on someone else’s face. An intrinsic flame that kept him going, that kept him _him_.

Kermit had known exactly what he was talking about back then because that exact same fire was burning inside of him. It was the joy of performance and the rush of applause. It was feeling buoyed by laughter and carried away on smiles. It was falling in love and being loved in return for the span of just five short minutes, until the curtain fell and real life reasserted itself.

Kermit felt a kind of love then and he felt it now for all of his new-old friends and the show they’d built together. He felt it whenever he looked in their eyes and saw his own soul looking back at him. He’d felt it when Fozzie had knocked his hand into his own back then, patting it awkwardly as the stage lights started to spin unsteadily above him. He felt it when Fozzie wiped banana cream pie from his face and went right into planning for his next monologue, undaunted.

He didn’t feel it now, looking down at cruel jokes that would get laughs, to be sure, but had no place on his stage. Not in their show. “Do you remember what I told you back then?” he asked.

“Sort of,” Fozzie said with a little shrug. “Things are a little fuzzy.”

They were in Kermit’s mind, too, but it was a comfortable sort of fuzzy. Warm. “I said that we were gonna make something great here, all of us. Even if it’s a disaster. It’ll be great.”

“Because we’re all having fun here together,” Fozzie finished, his voice gone soft.

“Yeah,” Kermit said with a little nod. “Yeah, that’s right. Now tell me, Fozzie, and don’t lie. Do _you_ like these jokes?”

Fozzie didn’t say anything for a long, long time, and Kermit could see the way his paws had balled up into fists. “No,” he finally admitted, quiet. “But Kermit, the audience—”

“The audience is just here to have a good time, Fozzie. Just like us. If I wanted to hire someone to tell jokes like these, I’d just go up to the balcony with a couple job applications,” Kermit said.

Fozzie flinched, and Kermit had a pretty good idea who’d written those comment cards.

“But I don’t want that. I want someone like you, who tries his best even when no one else gets what he’s trying to do. Who tries to make other people happy. That’s what I want from you, Fozzie. That’s all any of us want from you.”

Fozzie bit his lip as he stared at the notecards still clutched in Kermit’s hand, and then his eyes traveled up to the balcony up above. His gaze rested on an old tomato stain right on the side of it. “I… I don’t want to make anyone feel like _they_ make me feel,” he finally said, his voice still a little hushed.

Kermit finally gave into temptation and chucked the notecards back over his shoulder and grabbed Fozzie’s hands instead, giving them a squeeze. That paper-eating monster would find them soon enough, and Fozzie was the important thing here. Fozzie had always been the important thing — not any of the cockamamie acts he’d cooked up for Kermit’s stage.

“And that’s exactly why we love you here,” Kermit said. Exactly why Kermit loved him, along with everyone else who’d joined their ragtag little family. “So forget those new jokes. We like you just the way you are.”

“Aw, Kermit…”

Kermit thought about renegade produce and he thought about the setlist that he needed to go over again before the show that evening. And then he thought about Fozzie Bear, all alone at night and surfing the underside of the internet in some mad quest to be loved just as much as he loved first.

“Why don’t we go get a couple popsicles, Fozzie?” he asked. “And you can read me the jokes.”

“Yeah,” Fozzie said, his gaze finally coming up to meet Kermit’s one again. “I’d like that.”


End file.
